Hacker News Reader

Comment by Bootwizard | Hacker News Reader

Why does someone's purpose in life defined by their job? What if someone wants to make music or art? Or pursue some kind of other field that doesn't pay particularly well. Why do all Americans think that the point of your life is to work at a job for a majority of it?

View on HN

>Why does someone's purpose in life defined by their job? What if someone wants to make music or art? Or pursue some kind of other field that doesn't pay particularly well.

The question is why the people who do work at a potentially unsatisfying job to earn money should be forced to support the people who don't want to do anything in their life that anybody else values enough to willingly pay them for.

Because we have certain shared values, including that folks shouldn’t starve to death due to lack of work.

The United States already supports millions of citizens via a backdoor welfare: disability. This simply takes away the corruption and bureaucracy and gives it to everyone.

>This simply takes away the corruption and bureaucracy and gives it to everyone.

So to those who need it, and also those who don't. Why not just the first group? It'd be a lot cheaper.

For the same reason people already work unsatisfying jobs to earn money: to earn money

But why would they support a policy (UBI) that causes them to earn less money because of more “freeloaders”?

Without paying customers there is no job. UBI allows people to become those customers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com